Saturday, February 6, 2016
Painting like a child
There is a very famous quote by Picasso that I thought of a lot while we studied Modernism. He said: "It took me four years to paint like Raphael, but a lifetime to paint like a child."
I feel that a lot of Modernist painters went through the same process that Picasso did (Gauguin for example) where they started their artistic career creating accurate and lifelike paintings that show off years of skill, and then progressing into Modernism's more interpretative and child-like appearance. At first glance it's easy to appreciate the first more than modernism, but I've grown quite fond of many of the pieces we have studied. Modernism creates its own reality instead of trying desperately to copy the one right in front of them. Whether like Van Gogh or other expressionists where they take the world and show it through their eyes, like Balla who interprets photographic movement into painting, or the many cubists like Picasso who create a whole new world through the skillful use of geometric shapes. Modernism is so interesting in the way it can distort reality through shading and perspective. While it may at first appear the painting of a novice, once studied, the years of practice and perfection shine through.
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On another related note, in my middle school art building, they would have the teachers favorite artwork over the years hung up on the wall. Many times we would walk by and look at them and towards some, a child would say "Even I could do that" to which the art teacher responded "maybe, but you didn't." That always stuck with me. Thinking about it in relation to Modernism, I feel like Mosernist paintings are the ones in museums that guests would look at and think "even I could've done that" but after studying it, I see just how much thought and planning went into these paintings, and what they can represent. They are the work of true experienced artists, and after you understand the work, you can understand that too.
I really enjoy the ability to interpret the modernist art my own way! Most of these painters try to get their audience to feel a certain emotion while looking at these types of paintings, and I think that is really fun. The artists also often convey their own emotions in their paintings. Picasso, for example, has said that, "Painting is just another way of keeping a diary."I thought that was a unique way to look at it.
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